The Smart Communications Podcast

Ambar Mentor-Truppa, VP of Communications at the Shriver Center on Poverty Law, chats with Big Duck’s Gil Mejia and Sarita Joseph about the rebranding process. Formerly a communications consultant to nonprofits, Ambar shares her collaborative approach, ensuring all key stakeholders have a say in the decisions that affect them.

Sandy Zimmerman, Big Duck’s Art Director, shares her experiences freelancing for nonprofits and managing new freelancers at Big Duck. She offers tips for organizations looking for freelance designers and writers, including where to find them, how to vet them, and logistics around hiring.

Michael Hoffman, CEO and founder of Gather Voices, shares his perspective on how nonprofits can harness community-made video to create more engaging, honest, and diverse content. His new tool allows nonprofit communications teams, large or small, to collect, manage, edit, and publish videos submitted by the communities they serve.

Vince Warren is the Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a frequent guest on MSNBC, Democracy Now, CNN, and other news channels. He joins us to talk about communications as a tool to advocate more effectively. He shares an example of how CCR leveraged the media to shift public views about stop-and-frisk in New York City, tales from appearing on FOX News, and recommendations for media relations rookies.

Laura Fisher, Big Duck’s Senior Strategist, chats with Sarah Durham about how interviews can help you understand audience behavior and motivation.

Dan Gunderman was Big Duck’s Creative Director and Senior Copywriter for over 12 years. Before moving to Scotland, he sat down with us for a conversation about writing for nonprofits. He shares two simple rules for nonprofit writing, key differences between writing and editing (and how to do both well), and simple tips busy people can put into action right away.

Farra Trompeter, Big Duck’s Vice President, and Chris Tuttle, digital engagement strategist, bring their respective love for cats and dogs to the analogy of fighting communications and development teams. Hear how they create cross-departmental alignment and collaboration.

Alice Hendricks is the CEO of Jackson River, a firm that helps nonprofits harness the power of technologies to achieve their goals. In this mind-blowing conversation, she shares how the consumer marketing space is using technology (chatbots, artificial intelligence, and more) and outlines how nonprofits can apply those tools to create more personalized and relevant experiences for supporters.

Elizabeth Toledo, President of Camino Group and former Vice President of Communications at Planned Parenthood, is a crisis communications expert. She discusses the biggest internal communications challenges she’s seen and how strong values alignment can help nonprofits communicate more effectively internally and externally, especially about social issues and controversial topics. Plus, she shares recommendations for nonprofits looking to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace.

We sat down with Andrea Kihlstedt and Amy Eisenstein, capital campaign experts with over 50 years of collective experience in the fundraising space, to talk about their new project: the Capital Campaign Toolkit. They discuss how the model of capital campaign development is changing—from nonprofits relying on consultants to lead the process to embracing online resources and tools staff can use themselves. Listen to learn more about what kinds of nonprofits can benefit from the toolkit and when calling a campaign consultant will be an organization’s best course of action.